With mass-market beauty growth outpacing prestige beauty, ESW Beauty is making moves to become a bigger force in the channel, where consumers are increasingly adding beauty products to baskets of everyday staples.
Known for its juice-inspired sheet masks, the brand is unveiling a major overhaul and forecasting it will surpass $20 million in sales this year after generating $11.2 million in 2025. To sustain its momentum, ESW Beauty has embarked on its first-ever fundraise with a goal of securing at least $5 million and will introduce a broader skincare range in March.
According to the brand, it sold more than 1 million units of its sheet masks and eye patches and 400,000 lip treatments in 2025. This year, thanks in large part to the rebrand, ESW Beauty is projecting it will sell more than 3 million mask and eye patch units and 1.7 million lip treatments. Updated packaging and marketing are designed to more clearly communicate ESW’s identity and formulations and drive conversion at shelf through bold color, a more prominent logo and clearer front-of-pack ingredient callouts.
The rebrand cost around $500,000 for ESW Beauty’s 21-product assortment and took eight months from original concept to product on shelf. One inspiration for the refresh was a conversation Wang had with industry veterans who gave her frank feedback that ESW Beauty’s products were strong, but the brand was getting lost on crowded mass-market shelves.
“I could not understand for a long time what they were saying, and it was the most simple thing,” says Wang. “It was, where’s the logo? The logo is so small, people don’t recognize ESW Beauty for ESW Beauty. It’s that watermelon rosewater grapefruit mask. This is so important. You want people to know you.”
Wang determined the subdued hues she launched the brand with in 2019 were no longer a fit for ESW Beauty today. The brand polled its community via social media and Try Your Best, the blockchain platform that gamifies consumer loyalty, to validate that decision. “The brand and my energy were no longer the same,” says Wang. “I felt like not just myself, but also my community as a whole wanted more of this bolder, brighter, fun energy.”
The refreshed packaging prominently displays the brand name in a thick white font against poppy, saturated colors. It also pays greater attention to ESW Beauty’s active ingredient–packed formulations. The brand’s products are made in South Korea, and their ingredient lists feature skincare staples like niacinamide, witch hazel and vitamin C alongside emerging ingredients such as beta-glucan and purslane. The overhauled packaging calls out key, benefit-driving elements in all caps.
ESW Beauty’s sheet masks sell for $4.99, and its lip treatments for $11.99. Wang reports the brand’s masks are the top- or second-best-selling sheet mask at many of its retail partners. She teases that a full-size skincare range launching later this year will include a face mist, moisturizer, serum and eye cream.
ESW Beauty has kicked off its fundraise at a moment when the mass market is piquing investor interest as cautious beauty consumers stretch their budgets. Wang says the brand is profitable and mostly bootstrapped. She secured a $25,000 bank loan to get ESW Beauty off the ground and has raised what she describes as a small amount from friends and family.
Funding could support further retail expansion, and ESW Beauty is already enlarging its footprint as it brings Canada into the fold. It’s adding about 500 retail doors in Canada, where it’s entering health food and grocery chains such as Whole Foods Canada, Jean Coutu, Fiddleheads, Healthy Planet, Nature’s Emporium, Pharmasave, Nature’s Fare and Nutters. In the United States, the brand has a larger retail network of about 18,000 doors, including Walgreens, Target, Whole Foods, Anthropologie, Free People and American Eagle.
ESW Beauty’s push deeper into mass retail comes as beauty is integral to big-box shopping trips. For the first nine months of 2025, the market research firm Circana estimates mass beauty sales grew 5% and prestige beauty sales grew 4%. Amanda Nusz, SVP of merchandising, essentials and beauty at Target, told Women’s Wear Daily last month that more than half of Target shoppers now purchase beauty items, and the category has nearly doubled since 2019.
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